Definitions

• It is important to recognise the various voices in a text, how they relate to one another, and how the creator of a text uses these to shape audience response.
• Dominant reading is the reading that seems to be, for the majority of people in society, the natural or normal way to interpret a text.
• Mood is the atmosphere or feeling in a particular text, such as a text that creates a sombre, reflective, exhilarating or menacing mood or atmosphere depending on the imagery or other language used.
• Narrative point of view refers to the ways in which a narrator may be related to the story, such as the first or third person, omniscient or restricted in knowledge of events, reliable or unreliable in interpreting what happens.
• In a society where there are strongly competing discourses, alternative readings may be seen as challenging the dominant reading.
• Alternative readings focus on the gaps and silences in texts to create meanings that vary from those meanings that seem to be foregrounded by the text.
• Prose is ordinary language used in speaking or writing, distinguished from poetry by its lack of a marked metrical structure, and includes short stories, novels, letters and essays.
• Perspective(s) is a position from which things may be viewed or considered, and people may have different perspectives on events or issues due to their age, gender, social position and beliefs and values.
• Readings are particular interpretations of a text, and the classification of readings into alternative, resistant or dominant is quite arbitrary, depending on the ideology held by the reader.
• Literary texts refer to past and present texts across a range of cultural contexts that are valued for their form and style and are recognised as having enduring or artistic value.
• The medium is the means or channel of communication such as the spoken word, print, graphics, electronic/digital forms.
• Personification is the description of an inanimate object as though it were a person or living thing.
• These constructions are partially shaped through the writer’s use of conventions and techniques.
• Style can distinguish the work of individuals, for example, Winton’s stories, Wright’s poems and Luhrmann’s films as well as the works of a particular period.
• Tone describes the way the ‘voice’ is delivered, for example, the tone of a voice or the tone in a passage of writing could be friendly or angry or persuasive.
• Interpretive texts are texts whose primary purpose is to explain and interpret personalities, events, ideas, representations or concepts.
• The definition of what is a dominant reading depends on the ideology of the person making the decision.
• Rhetoric is the language of argument, using persuasive and forceful language.
• Examples of text structures in literary texts include sonnets, monologues and hypertext.
• Visual elements are the visual components of a text such as composition, framing, representation of action or reaction, shot size, social distance and camera angle.
• The term implies that texts are not mirrors of the real world; they are constructions of ‘reality’.
• Representation refers to the way people, events, issues or subjects are presented in a text.
• Analytical texts are texts whose primary purpose is to identify, examine and draw conclusions about the elements or components that make up other texts.
• Stylistic choices are the selection of stylistic features to achieve a particular effect.
• Stylistic features are the ways in which aspects of texts are arranged and how they affect meaning, such as lexical choice, syntax, narrative point of view, voice, structure, language patterns and language features, both written and visual.
• Synthesise means to combine elements (information/ideas/components) into a coherent whole.
• Choices in text structures and language features together define a text type and shape its meaning.
• Imaginative texts are texts whose primary purpose is to entertain or provoke thought through their imaginative use of literary elements.
• Voice, in a literary sense, is the distinct personality of a piece of writing, which can be created through the use of syntax, punctuation, vocabulary choices, persona and dialogue.
• Rhetorical devices are language techniques used in argument to persuade audiences, such as rhetorical questions, repetition, propositions, figurative language.
• Resistant readings employ a discourse different from the discourse that produces the dominant reading.
• Types of texts are classifications of texts according to the particular purposes they are designed to achieve, such as imaginative, interpretive, persuasive or analytical types of texts.
• Texts often contain ‘multiple voices’, which are the views, positions, ideas and perspectives of individuals or groups.
• Persuasive texts are texts whose primary purpose is to put forward a viewpoint and persuade a reader, viewer or listener.
• Theme is an idea, concern or argument developed in a text; a recurring element, for example, the subject of a text may be love, and its theme could be how love involves sacrifice.
• Standard Australian English (SAE) is the variety of spoken and written English language in Australia used in more formal settings such as for official or public purposes, and recorded in dictionaries, style guides and grammars.
• Resistant reading: a way of reading or making meaning from a text which challenges or questions the assumptions underlying the text.
• Text structure refers to the ways in which information is organised in different types of texts, such as chapter headings, subheadings, tables of contents, indexes and glossaries, overviews, introductory and concluding paragraphs, sequencing, topic sentences, taxonomies, cause and effect.
• Openings:

  • The start of a text must interest/engage the reader
  • Consider how the reader is introduced to ideas and questions that are raised
• Focus:

  • This is what the writer focuses on as the text develops
  • Think about what is implied, e.g. a gloomy landscape implies an unhappy situation - what is causing that unhappiness? What will happen next?